Most Active Home Sale months in San Francisco

I nearly forgot, but while researching for my previous post, I took a close look at number of homes sales per month. This is the "scary" number the mass media reports to say "homes sales dropped 34%" or whatever the latest figure is. Yes but... did price drop??? My previous post answers that - seasonally they do from one month to the next month, but year over year has been flat to slightly up the last 7+ months.

But what about those scary home sales numbers? Well, 2006 total homes sales appear to be off by about 20% from last year. But last year was the best on record. I believe this year will be the 3rd or 4th best on record, so plenty of homes are selling. But upon closer inspection, both years proved what most Realtors know.... that the highest number of sales occur in May & June.... BUT this is a tad misleading because this is when they "Close" and are reported as "sold". With most homes closing in 30 days, the actual sale is a month earlier. So if you're wondering when to sell, April & May are the most active months.

Next on the list are February & March, and then July through October. These 6 months appear to be roughly similar. The worst time to sell is December and January, with February a hit or miss month.